This route follows the low bluffs along the curving Ohio River; the
Big Sandy Valley, and the Levisa Fork, a tributary of the Big Sandy
River. In the southern section it passes between a cordon of small
hills that increase in height toward the south until, at the Kentucky- Tennessee border, they are stopped by the great purple and green wall
of the Cumberland Mountains. Veined by the river and its tributary
creeks and locked on three sides by hills and mountains, the Big Sandy
country was the last part of Kentucky to be surrendered to the white
man by Indians. Game abounded here and salt licks were plentiful;
until 1795 this common hunting ground was regularly visited by Creeks,
Choctaws, and Cherokees from the South, and by Shawnees, Miamis,
Delawares, Wyandottes, and Illinois from the North.

The rest of Kentucky had already been cleared before this section
was settled, and in the 1820's population in the Big Sandy Valley averaged only about six inhabitants to the square mile. But hardy, independent men continued to come into the valley by way of the four gaps
through the Cumberlands and along the Indian trails, or down the Ohio
and up the Big Sandy Rivers to the dark hills beyond. These men
established farms in open hollows; the loggers arrived later, to "bring
daylight in the swamp" and send millions of logs floating down the Big
Sandy; little towns arose in some of the more accessible pockets of the
region; and to the long-sounding toot of the packets that plied the river
was added, in the 1870's, the clear sharp whistle of locomotives announcing the coming industrialism. The hills were tapped for their mineral resources and coal mining became a major industry in the valley;
in some of the larger towns small factories developed. Today the Big
Sandy Valley has hard-surfaced roads, modern hotels, schools, and
churches. As seen from US 23, it has a settled appearance. Just across
the hills from the river, however, the, isolation still continues. Side
roads leading off from the highway are few; in the remote hollows, or
on the steep slopes of countless hills, are lonely little cabins where the
spinning wheel is kept busy and the wagon carries the family to
"buryin's," "meetin's" or "foot-washin's." This is Jesse Stuart's coun-

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